


One Man's Curse Is Another Man's Crush

by TheSilverQueen



Category: A Royal Affair (2012), Ella Enchanted (2004), Hannibal Extended Universe - Fandom
Genre: #EatTheRare, #EatTheRare Fest, Alternate Universe, Fairy Tale Curses, Inspired by the Cannipal Cinema, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-16 02:17:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8082853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSilverQueen/pseuds/TheSilverQueen
Summary: At every birth, the most dreaded thing was the arrival of the fairy godparent. Sometimes they were kind, and blessed a babe with good health and long life. Other times, they were cruel, and foretold only a life full of sorrow. And sometimes, they were clumsy and misguided, like the fairy Chilton, who’d blessed the Lady Verger with the curse of obedience and the Lady McClane with the curse of blindness. The king and queen, however, could not afford to hide their babe, and so they waited with a dreaded heart for the fairy Chilton to arrive.  
He proclaimed, to their horror, that the baby Prince Charmont would have the gift of empathy. 
When the king and queen put out a call for help, many doctors and witches and magicians answer the call from all over the land. One such doctor is Dr. Johann Friedrich Struensee.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Third and equally unplanned contribution to Hannibal Cre-Ate-Ive's [#EatTheRare challenge](http://hannibalcreative.tumblr.com/post/147505188389/the-hannibal-fandom-is-not-only-a-creative-and). Also inspired by the Cannipal Cinema's showing of Ella Enchanted, but in a slightly darker, less fluffier, and more plotty sense. 
> 
> Again, you don't need to know anything about Ella Enchanted or A Royal Affair to read this. If you need a visual reference to Char, picture season 1 Will but with more curls and babyface. Or Google works too, I guess :D

At every birth, the most dreaded thing was the arrival of the fairy godparent. Sometimes they were kind, and blessed a babe with good health and long life. Other times, they were cruel, and foretold only a life full of sorrow. And sometimes, they were clumsy and misguided, like the fairy Chilton, who’d blessed the Lady Margot with the curse of obedience (“A woman should always know her place, and this gift will ensure she finds no troubles with that!”) and the Princess Reba with the curse of blindness (“She is a lovely babe, and what better than to have the gift of seeing no evil to tarnish such loveliness?”). 

Even the common babes were not spared. Little Francis had run up during one such ceremony and confided in the preening Chilton that he harbored a wish to be a dragon, for he much admired the legendary creatures, and Chilton had duly agreed, giving Francis the gift of dragon-hood in the form of skin that shed in painful strips to allow scales and wings to emerge.

When the wings had broken through, Francis had run off into the woods amidst the stones hurled by children and the insults whispered by adults, and no one had dared search for him.

The king and queen, however, could not afford to hide their babe when he was born, and so they waited with a dreaded heart for the fairy to present him or herself at the naming ceremony. In fact, they had scarce proclaimed that their little prince would be named Charmont before the tell-tale fire-red glow of Chilton’s aura began to blossom in the room.

“My king and queen!” Chilton exclaimed joyfully, when he emerged.

One of the knights coughed, quietly, and Chilton flushed, immediately turning himself around to face the right way and therefore missing the looks of horror that flashed across the faces of the king and queen.

“Now what have we here? Ooooh he’s just so adorable, look at those blue eyes,” Chilton cooed, scooping the princeling into his arms and bouncing him up and down, much the alarm of the governess over the crib. “Oh don’t worry, I’ve handled literally thousands of these brats, he can’t possibly – Oh!”

The king muffled a snicker, as baby Charmont promptly spat up all over Chilton’s fine clothing.

As Chilton stared, aghast, the queen bravely stood from her chair and rescued her child, tucking him against her neck and praying that the good fairy would leave them be. Let her son be safe, she prayed. She didn’t want a brave son or a handsome son or son whose aim would never falter. She just wanted _a_ son, one that was hers and her husband’s, to love and cherish.

Unfortunately, this was not to be.

Chilton cleared his throat, and – with a wave of his wand – cleared away the vomit. “Well! How exciting!” he said, false joy ringing in his voice. “I think I know just the blessing for this babe!”

“Please,” said the queen, “please.”

“Oh, I shan’t hurt him,” Chilton reassured her, “just a teeny, tiny little blessing, because we all know that the heir to the throne must be amazing, yes?”

He proclaimed, to their horror, that the baby would have the gift of empathy. He would feel every single emotion in every single person around him. He would be able to feel so much that, with time, he would become them, and understand everything about them – their joys, their regrets, their fears, their loves. Even, he added with a sly wink, the things he did, no matter how small, that hurt them.

Right on cue, Prince Charmont opened his mouth and began to wail.

Chilton vanished in a swirl of light, laughing, as uneasy murmurs broke out amongst the guest. The king banged his scepter against the floor, to no avail, as the queen hugged her babe close and crumpled to the ground in despair.

* * *

At first, the blessing appeared to have no effect on their baby. Charmont acted, as far as his anxious parents could tell, like any other babe. He cried when hungry, giggled when happy, and adored being held by any number of cooing wet nurses and maids and footmen and nobles. He even slept quite well through the night.

Alas, it was not to last forever.

The king and queen had their quarrels, as any married couples do, and once after an argument, the queen stormed to her baby’s chamber in hopes that her child would give her calm. To her great confusion and distress, though, poor Charmont for once did not giggle and reach for her upon her entrance. Instead he shied from her with quiet little whimpers, and when she finally did pick him up, he struggled and wiggled and wailed as though he was in pain.

And that was when the queen realized that Charmont was actually feeling her anger, and feeling it so greatly that he too was expressing anger.

The queen never picked up Charmont again. In fact, it became a decree the next day that no one, no matter who they were, were to ever pick up the prince except for the necessary evils of bathing and diaper changing and clothes, because Charmont would be confused with the emotions and was far too young, they said, to understand what was going on.

* * *

As Charmont grew older, it only got worse. He knew exactly when a courtier was stealing silver from the table, acting so guilty that his governess searched him for stolen cookies while the guards searched the courtier. He mortified a grieving widower by bursting into tears, startling them both, until they were both carried out weeping. He got extremely disdainful, apathetic, or confrontational with his tutors and teachers, depending on their reactions to learning of his gift from Chilton the fairy.

The king and queen did not give up hope, of course. They put out a call for anyone who professed aid or a cure, no matter who, accepting all manner of self-prescribed doctors and witches and magicians and psychics. They tried leeching, they tried prayer, they tried exorcism. They even tried counter blessings with another brave fairy who, alas, was not strong enough to lift the blessing.

Yet nothing worked. Eventually, it got so bad that Charmont could stand only to be around his pets.

And eventually, the king and queen began to lose hope. Soon they no longer glanced hopefully at the forlorn empty chair besides them, and instead started court immediately. Soon they no longer waited for him to join them at dinners and banquets and ceremonies, but set up to business at once. Soon, they even stopped listing his name on invitations and responses and guest lists, until, eventually, soon they too began to forget that they had a poor son, cursed and afflicted.

But Charmont – or Char, as he defiantly demanded to be called – found happiness in his forgotten state. He was free to live in a little cottage on the back end of the castle estate, tending to his garden and his ponds and his dogs. No fair maidens came blushing for his hand, and no pompous knights daring to challenge his position in the kingdom. He was alone and forgotten, and he enjoyed the quiet. No one bothered him and he knew that each emotion he felt – petting his dogs, making his own food, catching his own dinner – was his own and no one else’s.

Did he sometimes watch, enviously, from the shelter of his bedroom whilst the world moved on, and festivals were had?

Sometimes.

Other times, he simply shrugged and went back to fermenting grapes and crafting his lures. He would be content, he thought, to live like this all his life.

Of course, fate had other ideas, and on the eve of Prince Charmont’s eighteenth birthday, a lone man straggled in from the rain, soaked quite through, with a horse in tow and a rather ill-kept summons from the crown in his hand. His name, he said, was Doctor Johann Friedrich Struensee, and he was here, as requested by the king and queen, to cure their prince.

The king and queen were understandably confused. They had stopped sending out missives years and years ago, resigned to the fate that their only child would remain a stranger to the world. Dr. Struensee explained that he had lived far, far, far away, and it had taken a long time for word to spread to his kingdom and an equally long time for him to make the journey back. However, he made the journey all the same, because he felt that he and he alone had something that might cure the poor prince, even if it might take some time to work.

“What of your wife and children?” asked the king. “Do they not desire your swift return?”

At that, the good doctor merely looked to the floor. “I have no wife and children,” said he. “Not anymore.”

The king and queen did not ask any more questions after that. They bade the doctor to change his clothes, provided warm food and comfortable quarters, and made the arrangements for him to meet their disgruntled son the next day.

* * *

Char, meanwhile, was incredibly disgruntled to find when he awoke an entire gaggle of maids and knights at his doorstep. Some of the maids and knights were cooing at his barking pack of hounds, whilst the others were screeching and dodging, trying and failing to avoid getting mud and dirt and dog saliva smeared all over their clothes and armor. All in all, Char thought, a rather ghastly way to wake up.

“What’s this?” he demanded, after whistling and calling most of his dogs away.

“We’re to prepare you,” called one of the maids, who was brave enough to look at him even if she failed to look at his face. “A doctor has come calling with news of a cure.”

Char rolled his eyes. They’d all come calling with news of a cure, every type of doctor imaginable, salivating over the idea of a position at the royal court and preening over a future where they had saved the life of the future king – and dreaming of all the rewards they might reap in return. Char had done his best to squash each and every single one of those dreams through whatever means necessary, something made easier whenever he tapped into the gift of his empathy. His absolute favorite had been when he’d driven away a rather incompetent doctor by pretending an allergic reaction, leaving his parents irate and the man in tears with half the guards at his throat.

Still, Char allows them to give him fancy clothes and comb his hair. It’s easier than resisting, and he imagines that in about a few hours, the doctor will leave angry, his parents will leave disheartened, and he will be free to throw these clothes off and change back into his normal attire.

After all, what could this one man do that countless hundreds of others could not?

**Author's Note:**

> I plan to post part 2 as soon as I'm done dealing with some other pressing fics (because Hannibal Big Bangs are due and I'm a terrible procrastinator), so at best 3-4 days and at worst a week. But I was already quite late to #EatTheRare so I wanted to get part 1 out at least.
> 
> If you liked this, please let me know in the comments or come hang out with me on [tumblr](http://thesilverqueenlady.tumblr.com)!


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